Ruthie Browning arrived for a dive off Key West, Florida, expecting to find only a marker for the Henrietta Marie and move on. Instead, as she and other Black divers prepared to visit a sacred site where a British slave ship sank about 326 years ago, she described being overwhelmed by emotion after seeing the memorial beneath the surface and reading its message.
The Henrietta Marie, the group said, delivered 200 enslaved people from West Africa to Jamaica and was traveling back to Britain in 1700 when it was swallowed up in the churning waters of New Ground Reef where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf of Mexico. At the site, a concrete marker memorializes those enslaved people, and participants said the marker has since become covered in corals and sponges, turning into a living reef.
Browning said she first thought the visit would be brief. “I thought I’d look at it, pay my respects and that’ll be that,” she said, describing how she expected to see “a big, old rock with stuff growing all over it.” While looking at the monument bearing the name “Henrietta Marie” and words about honoring enslaved African people, Browning said she told herself to be quiet so that, as she put it, “maybe they will speak,” adding that she felt ancestors’ words as she lingered at the marker.
Jay Haigler, master diving instructor with Underwater Adventure Seekers and described as part of a pilgrimage tradition tied to Black divers, said the group’s earlier attempt did not go as hoped. He said the water was too choppy last year, but that “This year was different.” Michael Cottman, who has written two books about the Henrietta Marie and helped connect the site to a Black scuba diving community effort, said the pilgrimage was never meant to be easy and added that he believes the site contains “spiritual turbulence.”
The divers said the most recent pilgrimage was influenced by a research and storytelling effort that connected history with present-day ritual. The trip was spurred, according to participants, by an underwater interview project proposed by Stanford University anthropologist Ayana Omilade Flewellen, who serves on the board of Diving With a Purpose, a Black scuba diving nonprofit focused on documenting slave shipwrecks. Flewellen said the submerged interviews also helped her connect as a pilgrim, describing “a kind of tenderness in my heart” and saying the experience helped her process a traumatic history rooted in death and suffering.
On land, the pilgrimage included a stop for African refugees buried at Higgs Beach on Key West’s south side. Organizers said the memorial and burial ground honors 297 African refugees who died in 1860 after being rescued by the U.S. Navy from three slave ships — Wildfire, William and Bogota. Corey Malcom, the Florida Keys History Center’s lead historian, said more than 1,400 refugees had been housed by the government in a compound and provided food and medical care, and he said many were sent back to Africa while “hundreds died due to the horrific conditions on the ships.”
Malcom said the cemetery had been largely forgotten for decades before historians and geologists used ground-penetrating radar to locate the remains. He said that in 2010, a large pit containing 100 more bodies was located at a community dog park across the street, and that the area is now fenced off. On Saturday, participants held what they described as an emotional libation ceremony—an Afro-Caribbean rooted ritual—where group members thanked their ancestors and poured white rum on the beach, with participants saying the clear spirit is believed to act as a messenger for ancestral souls.
Other participants said the underwater site also functioned as a conservation and preservation message. Joel Johnson, president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, said what surprised him as he approached the monument was the vibrancy of the habitat, describing fish darting among corals and shells on the sandy bottom. Johnson said conservation and protecting those habitats also preserve history below the waves, and he added, “This was not a place of death, but a place of life,” adding that he “didn’t feel like I was grieving” and instead felt “in the stream of history.”
The group’s visits included artifacts connected to the Henrietta Marie displayed in Key West. Participants said remnants of the ship’s wooden hull sit embedded at the site under layers of sand, and they said the shipwreck was discovered in 1972 by treasure hunter Mel Fisher. They also said that in 1983, hundreds of intact items were recovered, and that only a few slave ships were found among the roughly 35,000 used to transport more than 12 million enslaved Africans, with many vessels intentionally destroyed to conceal the illicit trade. The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum exhibit, participants said, occupies a full floor and includes over 80 sets of iron shackles, many child-sized.
Kory Lamberts said he was struck by the physical details of the exhibit, adding that the wooden planks creaked as he walked over them and calling the experience “visceral.” He said the shackles showed “young people — children,” describing them as “baby shackles” and adding that “The truth really hits you.” Lamberts also said he brought back fish from the Henrietta Marie site, describing the meal after the dives as a sacrament.
Other participants said the pilgrimage also reflected concerns about how slavery and Black history are portrayed by institutions. Dr. Melody Garrett, an anesthesiologist who said she started training with Diving With a Purpose in 2011 and has joined missions including the effort to find the Guerrero, said she believes “A pilgrimage like this is so important now more than ever because there is an effort to cover up, rewrite and change history.” Garrett cited what she described as moves by the Trump administration to remove references to slavery and Black history at National Park Service sites and federal museums, and she called the materials a strong sense of identity, saying, “This is our country.”